Archive for the This Month in N.C. History: ‘03 – March’ Category

This Month in North Carolina History In a clearing in the woods in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1781, British soldiers led by General Charles, the Lord Cornwallis, clashed with Whig troops led by General Nathanael Greene in a battle that changed the course of the American Revolution in the southern colonies and contributed to […]

This Month in North Carolina History On March 16, 1916, North Carolina shore-based whalers caught and killed their last whale in the shallows off Cape Lookout. The last shore-based crew in the area disbanded the next year, after their gear was destroyed by a fire. These events marked the end of more than 250 years […]

This Month in North Carolina History On March 3, 1865, Allen Lowry and his son William were tried in a hastily organized sham court, declared guilty of theft, and executed in Robeson County. While William was almost certainly a member—and perhaps even the leader—of a gang that committed robberies, it is unlikely that the elderly […]

This Month in North Carolina History Late on the night of March 10, 1948, a fire started in a kitchen of the main building of Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Spreading rapidly through a dumbwaiter shaft, flames reached every floor, and, in spite of efforts by hospital staff and local fire fighters to evacuate […]

This Month in North Carolina History On the seventh of March, 1840, the last spike was driven to complete the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad. As well as being the pride and joy of Wilmington, North Carolina, at 161½ miles the Wilmington & Weldon was the longest railroad in the world. Chartered originally in January 1834 […]

This Month in North Carolina History On the 18th of March, 1863, the streets of Salisbury, North Carolina, were invaded by a group of about 50 determined local women, identified only as wives and mothers of Confederate soldiers. The women believed that local merchants had been profiteering by raising the prices of necessary foods and […]

This Month in North Carolina History Early 19th-century North Carolina was not a place that international celebrities were likely to visit. Lacking large and cosmopolitan cities and with a primarily agricultural economy, North Carolina was well on its way to earning the nickname, “the Rip Van Winkle state.” So it was no small thing when […]